Kiss Battles ‘The Avengers’ in Fake Movie Trailer

It hasn’t even arrived in theaters yet, but Marvel’s ‘The Avengers’ is the undisputed blockbuster to beat this summer. And while some fans of the comics have been impatiently waiting for an ‘Avengers’ movie since the first issue was published in September of 1963, this fake trailer demonstrates why we’re fortunate it took this long — and shows us what the guys in Kiss might have looked like as supervillains.

For a number of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, cobbling together vintage footage is easier than it might sound; after all, both the Incredible Hulk and Captain America had their own TV shows in the ’70s, and the mighty Thor even made a cameo in the late-period TV movie ‘The Incredible Hulk Returns.’ But a certain amount of creative license also had to be taken — you’ll notice that Iron Man is played in the trailer by the titular hero from the short-lived series ‘Exo-Man,’ Black Widow is lifted from ‘Electra Woman and Dyna Girl’ clips, and Hawkeye is…well, we won’t spoil the surprise for you here, but let’s just say there was a very different Hawkeye on TV in the ’70s, and if you remember him, you should get a nice, big laugh out of his appearance here.

But the best part of the fake trailer might be the villains. In a bit of inspired lunacy, the person who made it used bits of Paul Lynde’s 1976 Halloween Special and 1978′s ‘Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park’ to make it look like Lynde’s the duplicitous Loki, working behind the scenes to pit the guys in Kiss (led by a fire-breathing Gene Simmons as ‘The Destroyer’) against our heroes. None of it looks anything less than thoroughly corny, but as children of the ’70s, we’re still a little sad that this version of ‘The Avengers’ never happened — even without the CGI, it would have been tons of fun as a CBS movie of the week. (Remember those? Sniff.) Take a look at the trailer below!